7 Ideas to Improve Your Cause Marketing

Brands across the globe leverage October to promote social causes. Breast cancer awareness is one of the most well-known and highest supported causes for many reasons. The awareness of this cause also has many benefits - it leads to check-ups that could be timely, it helps in soliciting donations that lead to research, and it allows all individuals, both men and women, to become involved on a global level.

Make your cause stand out!

Many marketers are extremely sincere in their messaging and promise to donate a percentage of their revenue toward the cause. Clothing designers create collections for the cause. Local events are held to bring the community together to celebrate and honor their loved ones. Cause marketing does work.

Here are seven things marketers could do to improve their cause marketing:

1. Can they see your signs? Make sure the cause is visible. Make sure you do this across all your channels - the web, email, social media, your store or branch, and even your people. Airlines need to begin talking about the cause at the point of check-in, and not just by selling pink lemonade on flights. Also, do not make the call-to-action of the cause hard to find within the message. If the consumer cannot understand what you are doing, nothing will happen.

2. What's your contribution? Make sure that the consumer understands what your contribution is to the cause. Some brands raise money, some sponsor an event, and some brands may contribute with the goal of creating more awareness. Make sure that your organization's contribution is clear.

3. Empathy. Make sure your messaging is empathetic. If you want people to pay attention to what you are saying, share the stories of those that have been affected and their devotion to the cause. Emotional connections work, just make sure they are intriguing enough to grab the consumer's attention.

4. Is it mainstream? Make sure you dedicate prime real estate on email, your website, and even on social media. If you slip a tiny pink ribbon into a corner of an email, it might be very hard to see. Do not hide your cause in a corner. Also, make sure that your people internally understand the passion behind your cause so that they can articulate it to your customers.

5. Does it work? If you drive consumers toward a call-to-action, make sure that you test your landing pages for intuitiveness. Also, make sure that the landing pages work correctly. Even if the consumer does not make a contribution, use their click on your web page as an opportunity to segment them into a "special cause" category.

6. Let them know. Make sure you follow up after the "click-through" or "donation." Send the consumer a thank you message thanking them for their involvement toward the cause. Use significant milestones as a means to let the rest of your consumers know about your progress as well. This could result in more contributions toward your cause.

7. Make it year-round! For the brands with even a softer side, make sure that you inform your consumers about all the charitable causes that you are involved in throughout the year. Make a resolution to extend your "pink awareness" from October into the remaining months of the year. Follow up by using this interaction to highlight some of the other things that you do to foster even more loyalty and engagement.

Want to learn more? Attend ClickZ Live New York March 30 - April 1. With over 15 years' experience delivering industry-leading events, ClickZ Live brings together over 60 expert speakers to offer an action-packed, educationally-focused agenda covering all aspects of digital marketing. Register today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sundeep Kapur has been assisting organizations with their converged channel marketing strategies since 1990. From direct marketing to digital to converged, he is a passionate teacher who works with businesses across multiple industries, helping them to enable technology and services to brand, and personalize and speak to consumers more effectively.

He is an industry-recognized expert who has delivered keynotes, run panels, and delivered "relevant, inspirational, and outstanding" education for organizations around the world.

Sundeep is also an avid user of social media, having leveraged words, pictures, and video into a conversational digital book. His daily dose of best practices can be found at www.EmailYogi.com, where he has more than 1,200 articles on best practices.

Featured White Papers

Google My Business Listings DemystifiedTo help brands control how they appear online, Google has developed a new offering: Google My Business Locations. This whitepaper helps marketers understand how to use this powerful new tool.